In recent studies, almost 50% of adults reported feeling anxiety regularly.
For many years, I counted myself as part of that 50%. However, knowing that I had anxiety did not give me any ways to deal with it.
In fact, labeling what I was feeling as anxiety ended up not being very helpful.
To understand what we mean when we say “anxiety,” we can start with a definition. We can think of anxiety as “a feeling of worry, nervousness, or unease, typically about an imminent event or something with an uncertain outcome.”
With the global events of the last ten years, everyone has faced uncertain outcomes. Whether it’s the economy or the pandemic, those are events that we know at an individual level we cannot control the outcome.
Many of us worry about our children, feel nervous about our finances, or live with a general feeling of unease, expecting that “the other shoe will drop” at any moment.
So what do we do about anxiety?
Do we just have to learn to live with it?
What would be most helpful is changing the way we think about anxiety so we can focus on what we are able to control?
How does anxiety feel in the body
First, it would be useful to become aware of what anxiety feels like in our bodies. Many common symptoms are a
- Tightness in the throat
- inability to think straight
- Flutter in the chest
- Weight in the stomach.
Being able to identify what anxiety feels like in the body allows us to start considering what we ARE able to change to affect the embodied sensation we may have become accustomed to.
How does anxiety manifest in our behavior
Second, we can begin to notice what anxiety looks like in our daily behavior. It may be these actions we are taking that directly impact the way we feel.
What is it in your daily life, your daily activities, that contributes to the anxious feeling?
Perhaps you are doing way too much; you are overcommitted and you don’t give yourself time to transition from one activity to the next or you may not give yourself enough time to relax at the end of the day.
You may have the behavior that is common among many. Can you relate to this?
The first thing you do when you wake up is to check your phone, your calendar, and your emails. By the time you get up, you already feel overwhelmed with everything there is to do. This feeling of having too much to do and needing to hurry so that everything can get done escalates throughout the day until we feel exhausted.
During the day, you are so exhausted that you self-medicate or self-soothe. You may turn to the glass of wine, hours of watching television, or endless scrolling on social media. Anything to escape and turn off the mind that has been in a mode of frantic activity since the morning.
How to take control and minimize anxiety
To begin to lessen the anxiety we feel and take control of what we are feeling, we must first become aware of how specifically anxiety manifests in our life.
We can use the strategies of noticing what we are feeling in our body when we feel anxious and noticing what actions we take on a daily basis that contribute to the anxiety.
We cannot control the world outside of us, but the sensation in our body and our daily action are two areas that we can control.
In other articles, I will give you some suggestions you can use to help develop each of these strategies.
Also, many energy body practices can help develop our awareness and help shift our behavior. When we learn to engage and deliberately work with our energy body, we can control the amount of anxiety we feel and how often we feel it. We can notice when the anxious feelings begin to rise and we can do something about it in the moment.
I will be sharing much more about these energy practices in the Mastering Your Energy Body class. Reach out to find out more information about the class.
I am a healer, mentor, and teacher who uses soul knowledge and energy medicine to help clients actualize their soul purpose in this lifetime. As a result, clients lead lives with more vitality and authenticity.
Find me at https://soulactualized.com